Child

Dani Age 2-9
1993-2000

12-92
Danielle’s Christmas photo, 1992.

Danielle Baptism 93
Danielle’s Baptism in Williamsburg, 1993.

SeaWorld 1993
SeaWorld, 1993. Danielle’s first ice cream bar bath.

Halloween 2 1994
Mouse regalia, Halloween, 1993.

Halloween 93
Halloween, 1993.

dinochair
Dino chair (photo by Ginny)

reading
Reading (photo by Ginny)

fuzzydress
Fuzzy Dress (photo by Ginny)

Bassinet plush 94
In her bassinet, long since outgrown. This was the same bassinet Linda had as a baby. Linda didn’t outgrow it quite so fast.

Ice Bucket
With Grandma Marjorie, 1994. Immediately prior to “The Ice Bucket Incident”. I leave it to your imagination.

Little Bit
With Little Bit, Birthday 1995.

Ballet 1995
The ballet performance at First Baptist’s Child Enrichment Center, capping her pre-school career, 1995.

Mindy_s BDay 1995
Mindy’s Birthday Party at Discovery Zone, 1995. Danielle “discovers” the mat.

Halloween 1995
Halloween, 1995. Pizza Hut.

Danielle Pink 1995
Danielle in Pink. At Yosemite in 1995.

12-25-95
Amazing Christmas, 1995.

Track 1994
There was a lot of track.

Xmas 1995
Danielle’s Christmas photo. Hold the snow.

Easter 1996
Easter, 1996. Immediately prior to the “Egg Fling into the Camera Lens” event.

Xmas 1996
Danielle’s Christmas 1996 photo.

Mc Donald_s
Danielle’s favorite fine dining restaurant. This one was in Fort Myers.

S_and_D Key West 1996
Steve and Danielle in Key West, 1996.

Sled 1997
Dog Sledding in the living room, 1997.

Irish
Riding lesson, 1997. With Irish.

princess
Mounting Princess with Miss Kathleen’s help

iaapa 97
IAAPA 1997.

bw 12-97
December 1997.

12-97
December 1997.

Hot Dog 97
Oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile…

bdaylilbit98
Danielle’s birthday party with Little Bit, March, 1998.

grandcyp98
Danielle, Zachary and Princess at the Grand Cypress Equestrian Center, October 1998.

danfig98
Danielle at the defunct Imagination Ride, Epcot, October 1998.

danchair
Publicity shot for the Alcorn McBride trade show booth and Digital Video Machine cutsheet, July 1998.

daniellexmas98
Christmas 1998 photo with her hamster.

Saddling Up My Horse
A Poem by Danielle Alcorn
1997, Age 7

Saddling up my horse.
Packing up my bags.
Setting off on a journey of faith.
I’m on my way.

There’s no turning back.
You never know what I may encounter.
Perhaps a fallen log or two.
Or a cross country jump.

Riding through the woods on my horse.
I may encounter a dragon breathing fire.
Or maybe a lioness sleeping in the sun.
I’m on my way.

There’s no turning back.
No, there’s no turning back.
There’s only one road I have to follow
And that’s not to lose faith in you.

All parents think their children are brilliant in every way. It’s our job. But I’m particularly fond of these examples of Danielle’s Artwork:

steve498
Steve. April 1998. Age 7. Dining at Howie-in-the-Hills.

swan

Mother’s Day. May 1996. Age 5. The swan outside La Coquina at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress.

Titanic
Titanic. May 1997. Age 6. Danielle’s first grade science project was “Would Higher Bulkheads Have Saved the Titanic?” And it was done before the film and all the hype.

BDay 2 1994
Danielle’s third birthday party at The Grand Floridian, 1994.

Marineland 1 1995
Marineland, 1995.

Marineland 2 1995
Marineland, 1995. Jumping for fish.

Marineland 3 1995
Marineland, 1995. Jaws.

Gatorland 1 1995
Gatorland, 1995

Gatorland 2 1995
Ride the Wild Turtle, Gatorland, 1995

Weeki Wachi 95
Weeki Wachi, 1995.

BDay 3 1996
Danielle’s fifth birthday party at Ft. Wilderness, 1996.

BDay Ft. W. 1995
Ditto

BDAy Ft W. 95
Same, with friend Zachary.

Swan 1996
The Swan hotel Sunday brunch, 1996.

Splash Mary 1996
Splash mountain, 1996, with Kay’s cousin Mary.

Dale
Dale, 1996. I bet you thought it was Chip.

Pirate Adv 1996
Pirate Dinner Theater, 1996. Not half as bad as it sounds.

Arabian Nights 1996
Arabian Nights Dinner Theater, 1996.

Disney Xmas 96
Disney Christmas Part at MGM Studios, 1996.

FL State Fair 97
Every year I help judge over 700 wines, mostly from California, at the Florida State Fair. While I judge, Linda and Danielle make themselves sick on the rides and Fair food.

FL State Fair 2-97
See?

Gator 97
Wrestling Gators at Gatorland, 1997.

sat1999
SAT, 2nd grade, age 8. Scoring at Post High School in several things.

Shamu and Group
Ninth birthday sleepover at SeaWorld, 2000. Megan, Mindy, Danielle, Zachary, Victoria, Hannah, Mallory, Tommy.

Zachary Victoria Danielle Megan

Danielle and Penguin

Atlantis 3-00
The full range of facial expressions, from delight to terror, anticipation to resignation, all can be found in this picture of Danielle, Zachary, Megan, Victoria, Mindy, Jim, Linda and Steve coming down the chute at Journey to Atlantis.

windermere_prep_day_1
The Charter Class of Windermere Preparatory School, September 5, 2000. Opening ceremonies. Danielle’s new school, Windermere Preparatory, was announced about two years earlier. It was quite near our house, in what was still open country. It’s a private school that offers Pre-K through 12th grade, although they started with Pre-K through 9th grade. They designed a beautiful campus, and scheduled the opening for September 5th, 2000. Then reality set in. What with permitting and other governmental issues, they were forced to change their plans so that they would use temporary buildings (read that “trailers”) for the first year, while they were building the final campus. That wasn’t really a problem, since even the public schools around here are mostly glorified trailers. Of more concern was the fact that as of August 1st, 2000, the site was still untouched. Although we were impressed by the staff they’d hired, and by the fact that every student from the 4th grade up gets their own laptop – all of which are tied together through a wireless network – we were getting pretty nervous.

But we took the leap of faith… and darned if they didn’t manage to get 30 trailer halves fastened together, sidewalks poured, a little sod thrown, retention ponds dug and a parking lot paved and lighted by the beginning of September. That’s more than her old school had.

But what they didn’t have was furniture and books. Oh, they had them in trucks. But not in the classrooms. So Monday, September 4th, turned into a real “labor” day, as teachers, administrators and volunteers unloaded, decorated, distributed supplies, and completely outfitted a school in one very long day.

Amazingly, Tuesday morning, right on schedule, it was a school, complete with welcome signs, balloons, a dedication ceremony, and a somewhat chagrined local press (they’d been predicting disaster).

Linda and I volunteered to work at the information table in Danielle’s classroom. This new school is already more organized than her last one. On the first day they had reams of orientation paperwork, signup forms and so on. I spent the afternoon buying parts for and assembling storage “cubbies” for her classroom – one of the few things they hadn’t ordered.

Following the first day of school, the construction workers descended again, throwing more sod, buttoning up thermostat wiring, and working on the water system (using a portable restroom trailer and a tanker truck for water until they get the well on line). It was a great start for just four weeks of work… perhaps due to two years of planning.

timecapsule
On Saturday, October 7, 2000 Linda, Danielle and I gathered with a few of my mother’s friends and buried a time capsule in her memory. Linda got the capsule, an 18-inch-diameter aluminum cylinder, from a company that promoted them as Millennium time capsules. We buried it three feet down, near the foundation of our screen room, on the presumption that whoever demolishes our house someday may find it. If not, archaeologists a few thousand years from now will certainly have their work cut out for them puzzling out its contents, which included the following inventory:

Catharine (Kay) Akley Reynolds Alcorn Time Capsule

This time capsule has been assembled by the family and friends of Kay Alcorn to commemorate her life. It was buried adjacent to her son Steve’s home on October 7, 2000. The items included are:

Biography
written by her son Steve.

Genealogy
researched by Steve’s wife Linda’s parents, Marjorie & Dean McBride of Los Angeles, California.

Republican National Committee card
Kay was a member of the Republican political party; she enjoyed attending speeches. Her signature is on the back.

Her favorite cat cup
she always drank coffee from this cup when dining here.

Her favorite cat figurine
she loved anything to do with cats and had an extensive collection of cat artwork.

A cat plate
she also had a very large collection of cat plates.

Jewelry
she also had a very large collection of jewelry. She often wore 10 bracelets at a time!

EPCOT commemorative
she visited Disney’s EPCOT theme park during its first year while Linda & Steve were working on it. Her favorite attraction was American Adventure which Steve had helped design.

Photographs
one of these pictures was taken in her friend Helen’s home in Celebration Florida when the town was new. The other picture was taken at the Artist’s Point restaurant in Disney’s Wilderness Lodge hotel with Danielle, age 3.

Cranberry mold kit
Kay without fail always brought her cranberry mold to any holiday dinner.

Video tape
Kay loved anything to do with television and for years brought her granddaughter Danielle video tapes when she came to visit every week. This tape is designed to be played on a VHS video tape player.

AARP card
although she thought of herself as young, she did belong to American Association of Retired Persons.

There are also drawings and notes from Danielle and some of Kay’s friends.

sam_and_nipperHalloween, 2000

A story written by Danielle in 2000.
(The bold words were spelling words that had to be included.)

Halloween

(with apologies to Mickey Spillane.)

It all started in my room on Halloween night. I was getting into my costume as usual when I knocked down my soldiers. I picked them up. I went down stairs to the kitchen, ate dinner and headed out for a night full of fun. We live in arural area. I used to think that was boring.

Little did I know what a spot of horror I was in for — more than a spot, an entire gallon.

I stumbled on the sidewalk and fell at an old woman’s feet. She was wearing black linen robes — filthy. She helped me up and asked me to sample one of her chocolates. I told her I would. I ate one. I tasted pretty good.

I fell. Where was I? What were those weapons doing dancing around me? I struggled to get up. I was frightened. I thought to myself, I must be going mental.

Suddenly a panel opened up above my head, which was pretty weird, since I was out doors. It was a black, square opening. A bundle of clothes dropped out. I unwrapped it. That was an error.

A litter of kittens came out. They seemed to be having aquarrel.

I would have tried to do something about the kittens, but I was too busy watching the pioneers and settlers dance around the frontiers of my brain. They were a real bunch ofadventurers, and seemed determined to make me pass out. I did.

I was sucked into a channel of unknowingness and wondered if somebody was about to cancel my ticket. But I woke up, sprawled on the sidewalk. All my gear was gone. The old lady must have taken it. Or something.

The moral is, don’t take candies from old ladies. And what am I gonna do with all these kittens?

science project brick drop 2000Physics Experiments

AK_Hippo_Bite Animal Kingdom, 2000

lowrey park zoo komodo 2000Lowry Park Zoo, 2000